In the view of the Critical Drinker, Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania “sums up everything the MCU has become…a plot so entirely predictable and generic that it feels as if it was written by an overworked AI, basically consisting of a series of tired and played-out tropes that have been done a million times before…visuals that are so obnoxiously overdone you can barely process what you’re seeing…

“Ant Man 3 is everything that most of us have come to despise about Marvel at this point…two hours of trite, bland, corporatized, predictable, pointless, soul-destroying nothingness…what a pile of absolute shite.”

Posted on 2.17.23:

If Sonny Bono hadn’t slammed into a tree while skiiing in the Lake Tahoe region on 1.5.98 and if he’d otherwise kept himself in good health, he would have celebrated his 88th birthday five days ago (2.16.23).

Bono was 64 at the time of his death. I’m sorry he suffered through that. But he lived an interesting life with an unusual arc — at first a hippie-ish songwriter, singer and performer in the ’60s and ’70s, and then a “protect the small businessman” Republican in the ’80s and ’90s.

An early ’80s memory: I was driving west along the hilly-curvy section of Sunset Blvd. (near Hugh Hefner’s Playboy mansion) when I noticed Bono in his car, waiting to slip into the eastbound lane.

Two or three years later I ordered a drink at Bono, his Italian joint on Melrose near La Cienega. My immediate impression was that there were too many tables scrunched together.

I’m mentioning Bono because until this morning I somehow hadn’t read that he and Roddy Jackson co-authored “She Said ‘Yeah!’“, a fast and catchy Rolling Stones song from ‘64 or ‘65. The song is basically a horndog thing — a lust-struck guy wants to have it off with a hot girl, and to his infinite delight she’s down for it… “yeah!”**

I’d also never read that Bono co-authored “Needles and Pins,” a 1962 song that took off when a version by The Searchers charted in ’64. Bono co-penned the song with Jack Nitzsche and Jackie DeShannon, who recorded a version in ’63. The song is more commonly known as “Needles and Pinzah.”

The obvious bottom line (apparent to anyone paying attention) is that Everything Everywhere All At Once is not just divisive but deeply loathed. It’s my personal opinion that this A24,release (and I mean this from the bottom of my heart) is nothing short of a pestilence.

HE’s latest Substack discussion (i.e., Jeff and Sasha) mostly focuses on the glorious, EEAAO-snubbing (except in the matter of editing) BAFTA Awards. We also got into some standard Oscar race pulse-taking. Again, the link.

Roger Friedman‘s 2.20 “Cannes exclusive” isn’t about the certainty of Martin Scorsese‘s Killers of the Flower Moon debuting at the 2023 Cote d’Azur festival — that assumption has already gained ground. Ditto the loose talk about Chris Nolan‘s Oppenheimer, James Mangold‘s Indiana Jones and the Wheel of Fortune Dial of Destiny, Woody Allen‘s Coup de Chance and Sofia Coppola‘s Priscilla.

Friedman’s new info (alleged but not confirmed) is partly about the festival’s opening-night attraction — Pedro Almodovar‘s A Strange Way of Life, a 40-minute, English-language short costarring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal. With just about every significant feature running 120 minutes these days (and often longer), one can’t help but admire Almodovar’s decision to keep A Strange Way of Life to one-third of that running time.

In my mind a 40-minute film isn’t a “short” — it’s a tweener.

The other announcement is about Maiwenn‘s Jeanne du Barry, a historical drama set during the French revolution that may, according to Friedman, screen on the second night of the festival. Alternately called La Favorite, the film will star Maiwenn as Jeanne Becu (aka Madame du Barry) in a rags-to-riches-to-guillotine story. Accused of treason, Becu lost her head during the French terror, and more precisely on December 8, 1793.

Johnny Depp allegedly plays the aged King Louis XV, who enjoyed Becu as his final mistress. The only problem is that Louis XV died in 1774, or 15 years before the French Revolution of ’89 and nearly 20 years before Becu’s execution so I don’t get it.

Wikipedia says Netflix will release Jeanne du Barry in France in 2023 (probably right after Cannes ’23), but that the streaming release won’t happen for another 15 months, or sometime in the fall of ’24. The Wiki page also states that the film, which finished shooting last October, was financed by the Red Sea International Film Festival. I don’t know…sounds kinda fishy.

The length of Scorsese’s Flower Moon is still in the vicinity of three hours and and 20 minutes. One possible reason is that the story Scorsese is looking to tell (based on David Grann’s 2017 book of the same name) simply required that running time to make it all work. Another possible reason is that Scorsese was fearful of Flower Moon being accused by Film Twitter of being a white savior tale and so he decided to add a fair amount of “Native Americans had their own agency” stuff so he and the film wouldn’t get in trouble with Native American wokesters.

The “Flower Moon has allegedly been woked into an anti-white savior film” angle was fully explored by Jordan Ruimy on 1.20.23. The first hint of this was reported the same date by Variety‘s Zack Sharf.

Andrew Sullivan (58:23): “Have you seen The Banshees of Inisherin?”

Bill Maher: “I have almost seen it. I’m almost at the end. A friend and his wife saw it, and they cautioned me off of it. It was on cable” — who watches cable? — “so I could tape it” — who tapes shows? — “and watch it in the kitchen. This is a kitchen film, I figured. It’s gonna be talky and ponderous, which it is…but in the kitchen [a film like this] works perfectly. And I’m almost to the end. Spoiler alert — the cutting off of the fingers. And, being ciose at the end, I don’t quite see how that pays off. And the sister left…”

Sullivan: “The scene I was thinking about…Colin [Farrell] has come to this realization…just to be with a normal person, nobody’s gonna remember us. And Brendan has to have his music and Colin just wants [simple] companionship.”

Maher: “That’s the point of the movie.”

Sullivan: “Yeah, and there is that conflict. And there’s this conversation where [Kerry Condon says to Brendan Gleeson], ‘That wouldn’t be good for your music, would it, if you chopped all your fingers off?’ And he says, ‘Ahh, now we’re gettin’ somewhere.'”

Maher: “But he does it [anyway].”

Sullivan: “And Gleeson says, ‘Yoo know sometimes I think we just entertain ourselves to stave off the inevitable. Don’t you think?’ And she says, ‘No, I don’t.’ And he looks at her and says, ‘Yeah, you do.'”

[Sullivan’s rendition is pretty close to Martin McDonagh’s screenplay, The passage can be found on page 59.]

Maher: “It’s so Irish, so Irish. A lot of suffering, and a lot of poetic-in-the-soul from the suffering. When Brendan suddenly says to Colin, ‘Leave me alone, you’re boring’, I thought ‘Colin Farrell, one of the most charismatic actors of the last 20 years, is boring?’ But okay, I got past that…”

Sullivan: “The older I get, the more Irish I get. The way they mix this dark anger with humor. The West Coast of Ireland, these people…”

Maher: “But [the film] had better have a big payoff. Colin burns Brenan’s house down…I’ve gotten to that part. Does something happen at the end to redeem this [fecking] story?”

HE to Maher: No, nothing happens. It doesn’t pay off at all. The movie simply leaves you with death and despair and severed digits, and the distant rumble of Civil War happening on the mainland.

Which is why the movie has never been in the Best Picture conversation, although the performers — Colin, Kerry, Barry — have been doing fine. Brendan hasn’t won anything because his character cut his fingers off and people generally don’t like that. I certainly didn’t. I found it ridiculous, in fact. Absurdly nihilistic.

Maher and Sullivan keep talking about Banshees for a while. [Until at least the 1:10 mark.] Then they get into the now-familiar observation, “This movie couldn’t be made today.” Maher: “How many films qualify in this regard?” Sullivan: “Basically everything.”

Elizabeth Banks‘ Cocaine Bear opens on Friday, 2.24. It will press-screen on Wednesday (2.22). This in itself is telling.

Wry journo comment: “We all know it’s going to open big next weekend, but there’s no way it’s conventionally good. It could be awful in a very amusing way or just plain awful.”

Regional industry friendo: “I’ve heard it’s awful.  And incredibly gory.”